AT&T and CWA Bash FCC Over T-Mobile Lay-Offs

AT&T today issued a statement regarding T-Mobile's recently announced call center lay-offs. In its public policy blog, AT&T chided the Federal Communications Commission for its failure to protect T-Mobile's employees. "Only a few months ago AT&T promised to preserve these very same call centers and jobs if our merger was approved," wrote Jim Cicconi, AT&T Senior Executive Vice President of External and Legislative Affairs. "We also predicted that if the merger failed, T-Mobile would be forced into major layoffs. The FCC argued that the merger would cost jobs, not preserve them, and that rejecting it would save jobs. Rarely are a regulatory agency's predictive judgments proven so wrong so fast: Centers now being closed would be staying open, workers now facing layoffs would have job guarantees, and communities facing turmoil would have security. Only a few months later, the truth of who was right is sadly obvious." Meanwhile, the Communications Workers of America also waded into the conversation. "T-Mobile USA's decision to close seven call centers ... harms workers and communities, and in several locations, abuses taxpayers who provided funds to the company in exchange for employment and economic development." The CWA also says the FCC should have approved the AT&T/T-Mobile acquisition. "The FCC chose not to approve that merger. Now we're seeing the result: significant job loss affecting thousands of workers and their families."

I searched for Cingular job losses on Google. Guess what I found? An article from 2004 where the CEO of Cingular details 7,000 jobs being cut due to the MERGER of Cingular and at&t!! So, yeah, 2 can play at the what if game.

Cingular, now ATT, wasn't in the financial position that they're in today. So, that is very much of a what if game. Other things have to be taken into consideration, before you can compare then and now. Just saying....

bobc74 said:I searched for Cingular job losses on Google. Guess what I found? An article from 2004 where the CEO of Cingular details 7,000 jobs being cut due to the MERGER of Cingular and at&t!! So, yeah, 2 can play at the what if

"Later Friday evening, the FCC responded with a short statement that basically said that AT&T's own confidential documents relating to the deal had projected job losses. With that comment, the FCC was saying that even had the agency green lit the deal, there still would have been layoffs anyway. And to make matters worse for AT&T, redacted documents belonging to the mobile operator show that had the merger gone through, AT&T would have eliminated more than the 3,300 employees affected by T-Mobile's call center closing."

Ummmm....So what is T-moblie doing with the Billions of dollars in break-up money? Apparently not preserving jobs....I smell C-level bonuses. While ATT originally proposed saving "these" jobs there would have been thousands laid off to reduce redunda...(continues)

I expect to see alot more of this in the future. AT&T is still stinging from the rejection, so anything that goes wrong with TMO they'll say they could have avoided. Classic case of sour grapes in reverse.

As true as that may be, it doesn't mean they're wrong either. We will never really know if the merger would have beneficial or not. Everything was based on statistics and history, not a definitive answer to what was going to happen. Whoever, with the ...(continues)

Some jobs lost to outsourcing but many more kept due to NOT closing stores or shutting down authorized resellers due to the merger. Many more jobs would have been lost if the merger went through due to closing stores where there was both AT&T and T-Mobile in the same mall or area. We kept many more jobs including many higher paying store management jobs and independent resellers are still around because T-Mobile is still around.

True - distribution would have been effected but only actual door count. Depending on what store was kept, (based on lease roll and other expenditures) the staff would have moved to the other location. You are increasing your customer base substanti...(continues)

Well, that will be something to wonder about. Lets see if they propose another merger in the near future, then your point will have been proven. Until then, it just shows that TMO doesn't have it's ish together, either. I've said it before, when the m...(continues)

Don't let big BLUE fool you. If you think BLUE would have saved more jobs, you are naive. Anything negative that happens to tmobile from here on out AT&T will say we could have prevented that. I wish they would just shut up and worry about their own network.